Flak Magazine: American Analog Set, Andrew Kenny and Benjamin Gibbard, 07.18.03

Before you even put Promise of Love into your stereo to unleash the American Analog Set's sweetly delivered woe, its cover hints at the heartbreak to come. It's hard to make out, but there it is: a love letter stamped "RETURNED TO SENDER." The letter itself is a deep red, the same hue as the sap that would come gushing from your barely beating, punctured heart. Not surprisingly, the songs behind the rejected letter, which make up AmAnSet's fifth full-length, invoke the slow, age-old pulse of injury.

If Promise's predecessor, 2001's charmingly poppy Know by Heart, is the musical equivalent of love's salad days, this latest effort is the aftermath, the sting that follows the break-up, the dejection of getting your letter back. To start, though, Promise carries Know by Heart's uptempo torch with the irresistably sprightly and lush "Continuous Hit Music." Drums stutter in over a buzzing, circular keyboard pattern and fuzzy, noisy guitars before a choir of vandals enters more than halfway through to pilfer the continuity and replace it with monotony of a different kind. The result is anything but dull; AmAnSet's familiar introduction to its new collection is nostalgic and comfortable, like an old friend's shoulder.

And what follows, actually, is not unfamiliar. It's what would logically follow that well-known shoulder — upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist, hand, fingers — because even with a new dash of bitterness ("'Cause she fools around on a boy who never thought to fool around" from "Fool Around"), AmAnSet's output is predictable, delivering what the Austin, Texas, group does best: floating melodies and whispered vocals in songs about you and me and now, all the things that came between us.

"Hard to Find," a memorable cut despite its well-traveled sound (also check out the shimmering "You Own Me"), features a circuitous two-part, guitar and xylophone melody that orbits Know by Heart's "Gone to Earth." Singer Andrew Kenny posits, with what could pass for a slight snarl, "And keep it in mind that we're older and jaded ... can't shake it." He's probably singing to the tart who had the gall to return his letter, but the vague defiance in his voice hints at the line as an excuse, a defense, a reason.

That's because Promise's tracks, like the majority of AmAnSet's tunes, bleed into each other. They're wounded and gorgeous and we expect this. Mr. Kenny, it's OK if you're older and jaded, and the songs that come to you don't want to sound too different from one another, but if we nudge the envelope back to you, it's because we already know what's inside. And if we accept, it's because we don't respond well to change. AmAnSet's subtle progress on Promise of Love, then, is the band's promise to those who love it to stay just the way it is.

AmAnSet2 That kind of attitude, of course, could leave many empty-handed, but solo Kenny and Death Cab for Cutie frontman, Benjamin Gibbard, draft a different set for those who are tired of the same ol' same ol'.

On HOME: Volume V of the Post-Parlo Records Split CD Series, Kenny and Gibbard serve up three original songs each, plus a cover of a song from the other's band. For the most part, Gibbard's performance is nothing shocking, with his carefully detailed lyrics ("a broken bed with dirty sheets that creaks when I am shifting in my sleep") and sugary voice. "Farmer Chords" starts out with Elliott Smith-type guitarings and the AmAnSet cover of "Choir Vandals" mopes along much as the original does.

Kenny, on the second half of the collab, does Ben better, stripping down Death Cab's "Line of Best Fit," which sounds more like an AmAnSet song, anyway, to just himself and a guitar. Of his three other noodlings, two impress: "Secrets of the Heart" unfurls goth-pop leanings, like how Robert Smith might sound if he weren't English, and "Church Mouse in the Church House" tiptoes around your tear ducts while Kenny's voice cracks in the corner, singing, "Does he know you're gonna save me?"

HOME: Volume V won't wow fans new or old, but for followers of Death Cab for Cutie and American Analog Set, it dishes out eight succinct pop songs good enough to take home.

— Lavina Lee (lavina at flakmag dot com)